Rat Relocation Program

The dynamic hybrid electro-rock duo Matmos strike again with this zany, completely mesmerizing two-track contribution to the Met Life series of field recordings and ingenious sound responses. "A street rat was breaking into our apartment, eating our food and chewing holes in our clothes, skittering across our kitchen in the dark, scuttling inside our walls late at night. Since we already had a pet rat, the prospect of trying to kill one rat while feeding another struck us as intolerable hypocrisy, so we bought a non-lethal "Have-a-Heart Trap." After several days of luring the invader closer and closer towards and then inside the trap with peanuts, we captured her. The first track is an unedited recording of the rat protesting its incarceration. The second track is our response, in which the timing and duration of the rat screams from the first track have been preserved. The following morning we took the rat to a wealthy suburban neighborhood and set it free.” – Drew Daniel of Matmos